


The Sun Will Shine

by silveryink



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Fix-It, Bad Humor, Brotherly Love, Friendship, Gen, Handwavy Science, Loki (Marvel) Redemption, Loki (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Loki and The Doctor are old friends, Peter Parker and Bruce Banner make tiny cameos, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 02:13:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17799167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveryink/pseuds/silveryink
Summary: Two old friends meet and save the universe together. It's about time, after all.





	The Sun Will Shine

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Just Kind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13529802) by [whatyoufish4](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatyoufish4/pseuds/whatyoufish4). 



Loki wasn’t usually one for jewellery, but he made an exception for the silver key that hung around his neck. He’d had it for most of his life, a gift from an old friend that he could use to call for aid. The key hung on an enchanted and heavily glamoured chain, invisible to everyone but himself and a few select others. He never took it off, and had never used it before to call for his friend’s help.

Not even when he’d been trapped in the Sanctuary for a year, at the mercy of the one they called the Mad Titan.

The reason for this was simple: Thanos wouldn’t have hesitated to lure his friend into a trap, and Loki knew that that would result in the worst possible outcome for the universe as a whole. No matter that he could have escaped very easily with his friend, he refused to risk it. The TARDIS, though loyal to her Time Lord, might not last long against an Infinity Stone.

Somewhat ironically, considering that in the past he’d been a time traveler, his time had run out. The Titan had found them hovering in the middle of nowhere with the remains of Asgard in a lone ship.

No doubt he’d returned for the Tesseract, ready to exact punishment for his years-old failure to bring the cube to him. He fingered the key and a plan began to formulate at the back of his mind. “Thor, do you trust me?” he asked levelly.

Thor frowned. “Brother, I-”

The whole ship shook. Loki cursed, grabbing onto a railing to steady himself. “He’s taking down the defences,” he said shortly. “Thor, I need your answer now – _do you trust me_?”

“Probably not the wisest thing to do,” Thor said wryly, “but yes.”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, warmth flooded through Loki’s chest. Thor gave him a lot more credit than he should. He just hoped he could trust his brother’s judgment now, as he had done in the past, that Thor wasn’t wrong to trust him.

He fished out the Tesseract from his dimensional pocket and ignored Thor’s sharp intake of breath. He summoned multiple projections of himself, asking all the Aesir to assemble in the main deck of the ship. He sent Thor to start up the Commodore, that they would need it soon, and began to weave a complex illusion around the ship.

He paused in his administrations for a moment, calling out to Thor. The god of thunder, who was already halfway out, turned back with a questioning look. “I assure you, whatever happens now, the sun will shine on us again.” He had to let him know. There was no other outcome he’d accept.

Thor nodded, eyes glinting with steely determination. Then he turned on his heel and was out.

The key pulsed once around his neck, diverting his attention from the task. He could call the Doctor, but the same reasons that had prevented him from doing so all those years ago stopped him now. With the Tesseract’s power, he teleported the ship to Midgard’s orbit, trusting Heimdall and the Valkyrie to take care of the situation. In the same moment, he brought his illusion to life, and transported himself to the Commodore. The two brothers sat in silence as Thanos tried to wreck the illusion around them.

Keeping it steady was sapping Loki’s energy at an alarming rate. Illusions never persisted under touch, and required conscious thought to keep up appearances. Given that he had the Tesseract, he could in theory borrow some reserves from the Stone itself, which he was about to do were it not for the fact that Thanos scored a lucky hit and clipped the side of the small disc-shaped ship.

The Commodore spiralled through the illusion and stopped where the hangar of the illusion was torn apart. Thanos stepped onto the wing of the ship and waited. There was nothing to be said – the Black Order was sent to search the illusion. Proxima Midnight dragged a limp figure up to the Titan’s feet – Thor, who had probably passed out from the force of the hit – and stood behind the mage, spear pointed at him in an awfully familiar stance.

Loki quickly realised that his plans would bear no fruit and he stepped up to look Thanos in the eye. He knew what would come next and cursed himself silently; he should have sent Thor with the rest of the Aesir when he’d had the chance-

“Your brother’s head, or the Tesseract,” Thanos said calmly. “I assume you have a preference.”

“Oh, I do.” He hoped his wards would hold. “Kill away.”

The wards, it turned out, did _not_ hold under the Power Stone’s, well, _power_. Thor woke abruptly and screamed, a sound Loki couldn’t have prepared for with all the millennia that their life-spans provided. His skin crawled with remembered agony, and the knowledge that he was putting his brother through the same-

“Alright, _stop_!” He wasn’t sure if that was directed at Thanos, or his own thoughts.

The Titan acquiesced, however, moving the gauntlet away from his brother’s head. Thor was breathing raggedly, every inhale harsh and laced with pain. Loki knew that he couldn’t hand over the Tesseract to the Titan, but seeing Thor like this…

His hand found the key around his neck. It was abnormally warm to touch, and he glanced down at it. His eyes widened at the bright golden glow. A faint rasping sound accompanied quick swirls of breeze, and a bright, blissfully familiar blue box materialized next to the Titan. Thanos dropped Thor in his shock, and Loki sprang forward, tackling him aside and away from Thanos. His momentum carried him straight to the entrance of the TARDIS.

The doors opened of their own accord, and Loki didn’t hesitate to scoop his brother up in his arms. Thor moaned, and Loki eased him into sleep with a light spell. The doors closed behind him even as he entered the time ship, and he felt his stance relax for the first time that day.

“We have to get out of here,” he croaked.

“What, no hello for an old friend?” called a voice from somewhere behind the console.

“Doctor?”

His oldest friend, now with cropped blonde hair, peeked out from behind the rotor. “In the flesh,” she(?) grinned.

Loki raised an eyebrow. “You’ve regenerated,” he commented. “It’s a nice look on you. Your pronouns are…?” This was a question he usually asked after every regeneration.

“I know,” she said excitedly. “And I go by she and her now. Apparently. So what’d you get up to out there?”

That brought his attention back to his unconscious brother. The spell wasn’t a painkilling charm, so it wouldn’t last. “It’s a long story,” he said, and the Doctor must have heard something in his voice as she came up to him. She glanced at Thor worriedly, using her sonic screwdriver to scan his vitals. She brought it up to her face, examining the readings carefully.

“He seems to be doing alright, physically speaking. But I’m reading massive amounts of energy on him… they don’t make sense, but I think we should get him to the medbay just in case.” She peered at him, probably debating whether or not she had to scan him as well. “You should probably get yourself checked out too,” she added firmly.

Loki wasn’t too inclined to argue, and silently followed her to the medbay.

* * *

“The Mad Titan? I thought the Time Lords had taken care of him eons ago!” The Doctor sat down hard on the cot. Loki patted her shoulder sympathetically.

“I did some research a few centuries ago – which I abandoned quickly, given that most of the tales about him were horror stories – but they all said that the Nine Realms worked together to subdue and lock him away in the Void. I guess they didn’t think that someone else would find their way there too.”

The Doctor grimaced at his allusion. Over the last hour, as she’d fussed over his injuries and lingering exhaustion after the massive illusions he’d constructed, he’d told her everything that had happened since he let the _Jotnar_ into Asgard. “You’ve come a long way from there,” she said. Loki smiled. “There’s still a long way to go,” he admitted, “but I’m getting there.”

* * *

After explaining the entire situation with Asgard (“So _that’s_ what the huge energy displacement was!”) and their refugee status now, as well as his dilemma about returning to Earth, the Doctor decided that they could think about that after checking up on Thor. He seemed to be doing well, but guilt at what he’d had to endure stabbed at Loki. He didn’t regret his choice of not handing over the Tesseract, of course – the consequences would have been disastrous – but there were other alternatives he could have chosen.

Thor was awake and alert, if a bit confused about his new surroundings. The Doctor scanned him over once again and looked pleased with the results. “You’re a tough one, aren’t you? Those energy readings are all gone, I’m guessing any lingering effects of whatever happened must be gone now, aren’t they?”

Thor blinked. “Um… who exactly are you?”

“I’m the Doctor,” she said warmly. “Nice to meet you at last, I’ve heard a lot about you from Loki.”

On hearing the mage’s name, Thor’s eyes widened. He scrambled upright, and she cried out a protest. “Oi, did I say that you could get up?”

“My brother-”

“Relax, he’s fine, he’s over there. Say hello, Loki,” she called out absently as Loki moved closer into Thor’s limited field of vision.

“Thor, are you alright?” The note of concern in his tone was, he knew, transparent, since he was making no effort to mask it. “The Power Stone…”

“I’m… fine? I have no idea how, but it doesn’t hurt now.”

Loki nodded, barely appeased by the news. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, in that moment making a split-second decision to trust his brother with his vulnerability. He hated to admit it, but he knew that he could let his guard down around Thor. It was a nice feeling, one he’d slowly grown used to during their journey on the Statesman.

“What for?”

“If I hadn’t – the Tesseract-”

Thor shook his head and sat up slowly. “I don’t blame you for taking it – I rather expected you to, because how else could you have escaped Surtur that quickly – but I wish you could have told me sooner.”

Loki blinked. It was so easy to forget how perceptive his brother was. “I…”

“I’m glad you didn’t hand it over,” Thor added.

“I would have,” Loki admitted, sitting next to Thor on the bed.

Thor remained silent for far too long. Loki risked a small glance at his brother, who looked thoughtful. “A year ago, before the whole Hela thing-”

“You know, ‘Ragnarok’ sounds better,” Loki muttered, but Thor ignored him.

“I would have said that you’d have given it up without hesitating. Or you might have run. You had a way out all this time, but you chose to stay.” He rested a hand on Loki’s shoulder, gentle, but firm. “You’ve come a long way, brother,” he unknowingly echoed the Doctor’s words from a while ago. Loki grinned. “I may yet surprise you.”

“Good,” Thor said promptly. He turned to the Doctor, who had remained silent and given them some space until then. “You didn’t answer my question, when I asked who you were,” he said.

She shrugged. “There’s not much to say. I’m the Doctor. I travel across time and space, occasionally help out when there’s a problem. That’s how I found this one-” she nodded at Loki, who flushed and ducked his head (their first meeting had been nothing short of embarrassing)- “when he was in a bit of a fix. Once we got that sorted out, I offered him a chance to see the universe and return moments later. He took it.”

Thor frowned at Loki, who immediately caught on. “I felt trapped, on Asgard. I hadn’t learned to walk between worlds, and you know that it is not in my nature to stay… _fixed_ , in a single place. There were other things, not that important now, I realise, but I needed to see what was out there, outside the Nine. It was… interesting, to say the least.”

“No kidding,” the Doctor muttered. “There was that time with Jack, though-”

“Okay, that was _one_ time!”

“You nearly threw him off the TARDIS,” she pointed out. “For bringing you a cute Klandrine nanopup as a gift.”

“It wasn’t a gift.”

“A cute Klandrine nanopup.”

“It was anything _but_ a nanopup.”

“A cute Klandrine.”

“I doubt it was Klandrine, the thing had tentacles all over it.”

The Doctor was doing her best not to grin. “A cute.”

Loki gave in and smiled. “Fine, it was cute. In my defense, I thought it was attacking me.”

“It tried to hug you. I don’t know which of you was more distraught,” she reminisced, giggling.

Loki rolled his eyes, pointedly ignoring Thor’s gaze. His brother’s spirits seemed to be lifted, which had been the idea in the first place. Loki found himself calming down, despite the serious situation looming over them, and settling into easy patterns of banter and sarcastic quips. But the fun had to stop at some point, unfortunately.

“Have your powers grown?” the Doctor asked him, eyes wide. “Because I’m getting stronger energy readings from you.”

Loki smirked. “Let’s just say I’ve grown into my identity.” He rested a hand on the metal of the bedpost, and his powers flow through into the cool metal. A thin layer of ice crackled across, and the tips of his fingers where his hand touched the ice turned blue. He’d been practicing with his newfound ice powers for four years, and he was quite used to the colour change now to be disturbed by it.

Thor’s eyes widened, familiar to Loki from all the times he’d shown Thor something new that he’d learned. A load seemed to lift off his shoulders, leaving him lightheaded and giddy with relief. He hadn’t known – noticed – his worry about his brother’s acceptance of his heritage. “I didn’t know you could do that,” Thor and the Doctor said in unison. This was enough to startle a surprised laugh from Loki.

“It was a recent development, I assure you.”

“Right, we’re lucky to be in the Time Vortex, so you can show off – or maybe not,” the Doctor said when the TARDIS’ lights shut off. “Apparently we’re a part of-”

“-the flow of events, I thought as much,” Loki finished. “But we can still use the TARDIS to move through space.”

The Doctor nodded and ran into the control room. “You know where I’ll be, get here when you’re both ready.”

* * *

Thor leaned against the railing and watched his brother and the Doctor flit around the console, keeping up a continuous stream of chatter that seemed to be half instructions and half reminiscing the past. “I thought you’d have forgotten how to do this,” the Doctor admitted at last, pausing and resting her hand on a TARDIS-shaped control.

Loki raised an eyebrow. “Did you, now?”

“Only at the start!”

Loki chuckled softly, glancing at Thor. “You might want to hold on to something,” he warned.

The Doctor huffed playfully, and grinned as she tossed the control. A raspy sort of noise filled the air, oddly musical in its own way. The TARDIS shook and Thor had to brace himself against the railing to keep himself from falling on his face. Loki was grinning, eyes shining in a way Thor had missed seeing – something that he usually associated with his brother’s love of travel.

Apparently time travel was also an available option.

* * *

Tony Stark seemed less than surprised to see the trio. “Point Break, good to see you again. Bruce here has told us something _very_ interesting, about some huge raisin trying to destroy the universe?”

“I’d say it was half the universe,” Loki interjected, and Thor smacked his forehead. Norns, Loki was _incorrigible_.

“You’re here too,” Tony muttered. “I thought Bruce was kidding about that.”

“He was not kidding,” Thor said seriously. “My brother was coerced into attacking your realm. Thanos and his henchmen sent him to retrieve the Tesseract.”

“Buddy, I believe you. I was cross-checking the facts, and he literally paved the way for our success in stopping the invasion.”

“Oh, good, you noticed that,” Loki said happily. “It took me quite the effort to do _that_ , mind.”

“I thought so,” Tony agreed. “Makes sense that they’d have kept an eye on you the whole time.” He eyed the Doctor, who had just stepped out of the TARDIS. “And you are…”

“I’m the Doctor,” she said proudly. “I’m here to help.”

* * *

Titan was a far more desolate planet than they all had imagined. Thor and Loki had been assisting the Doctor with reprogramming Vision to be able to remove the Mind Stone, and they’d just about been able to prise it off by the time the party landed on Titan.

The TARDIS materialised next to Stephen, who barely reacted. “Oh, good, you’re here,” he told the occupants. “We were just discussing what to do when Thanos arrives.”

“Hopefully _not_ hand over the Time Stone,” Loki said with a frown.

The Doctor frowned, pausing her scans. The sonic screwdriver buzzed softly. “Wait, hang on, _that’s_ where the artron energy readings are coming from? I thought that was because of you and the Tesseract!”

Loki shook his head, mystified. “What… artron readings?”

“From the Stone,” the Doctor said slowly.

Loki blinked and smacked his forehead once he caught on. “Of course! Strange, do you think you could mask the energy trace of the Stone if you hid it in the TARDIS?”

“I could,” he mused. “There might be some kind of overlap, though.”

“That’s fine,” the Doctor assured him. “The TARDIS is larger than she looks. And sturdier. Thanos couldn’t pull her apart with the Power Stone, she’ll be fine.” She abruptly turned to Loki. “You should keep the Tesseract there, too. I can literally feel it tearing through dimensions. There’s no way that’s not drawing on your reserves.”

Loki winced. “You’re not wrong.” He held his hand out towards Stephen, who raised a sceptical brow. Loki rolled his eyes. “The Stone, Strange. I need the Stone.”

“This is a mess,” Tony mumbled.

“We could just leave,” the Doctor suggested. “No need to-”

Loki cried out suddenly, jack-knifing to his knees and clutching at his head. Thor knelt beside him and rested a hand on his shoulders. “Brother?”

“He’s – here,” Loki managed. The others looked up at a large ship looming in the distance.

“Holy – how big is that, exactly?” a young voice – Spider-Man, Loki remembered hazily – asked. The old tracer in his mind faded away when Thanos neared them, and he found himself breathing easier.

“Very big,” the Doctor responded darkly.

“Trust me, you do _not_ want to be on that ship,” Loki added, getting to his feet shakily. “You don’t even want to know what’s in there.”

“Hopefully not reinforcements,” Thor murmured, and Loki scowled at him. Thor ran a hand through his hair. “We will be better prepared this time, at least.”

Loki made a sound that voiced his displeasure at the statement perfectly.

“To be fair, we could be doing worse,” the Doctor said in her optimistic way.

“Worse is on its way,” Tony reminded.

It was time.

* * *

In the end, it _was_ time. Time saved them all. Specifically, the Time Stone and the Time Vortex bonded somehow to completely obliterate Thanos and his armies out of existence. The Doctor had been joyous that she hadn’t had to do a thing, leaping high into the air (something that was heightened by the lower gravity).

They all filed into the TARDIS, glad to leave this chapter of their lives behind, and Tony grumbled to Peter about how Thanos had thrown a moon at him. (“An actual moon, Peter, an actual-freaking-moon!”) Thor, however, was more interested in Stephen's and the Doctor's discussion. Though they spoke softly, he could hear every word.

“The Mind Stone is already gone, and the Soul Stone is still lost,” Stephen mentioned.

“The Time Stone will be safe in the TARDIS. It’s a part of the Time Vortex, and once it is unified with the Matrix, it can’t be misused.”

Stephen nodded. “Then we can take the Power Stone. We can guard it in the Sanctum.”

“What about Space and Reality?”

Stephen wondered. “I think we should give the Aether to Loki,” he said at last. “His magic would probably react best to it.”

The Doctor snuck a glance at said mage, who was curled up next to Thor, red cape over his shoulders as he slept peacefully. Thor caught her glance and nodded in affirmation at Stephen’s statement, content with their current situation. They’d decided to rest and recuperate for a while in the Time Vortex before returning to Earth, or in the two brothers’ case, find their people.

“I agree,” he decided. “He’d be glad you trust him enough for this. It’s a good first step, and the Stone will be in good hands.”

“I thought as much, his illusions and the Aether’s own reality-manipulating powers would complement each other the way the Time Stone and the TARDIS Matrix do.”

The Doctor looked absurdly pleased, Thor noted. “See that? They all love you,” she cooed at the TARDIS. Thor grinned. He could see why Loki would have wanted to become her friend. Her enthusiasm was contagious, even to the most cynical of people. And if she had known him before his fall, well, that was only a plus. He stroked Loki’s hair absently, forgetting for a moment that his brother was a light sleeper. But Loki didn’t stir, instead unconsciously shifting closer to him. Thor smiled, and allowed himself to drift into a comfortable rest.

When they woke, it was to the light of the sun shining on them again.


End file.
